


I know what you're doing

by weekend_conspiracy_theorist



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: F/F, assumptions followed by actual communication, tasha's temper!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 01:46:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15377967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weekend_conspiracy_theorist/pseuds/weekend_conspiracy_theorist
Summary: A walk in the holodeck, an argument in the hallway, and an offering of brownies.





	I know what you're doing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for tumblr's doodlingleluke as part of the sapphicstartrek femslash fanwork exchange!

She’s in uniform.

There are birds chirping, sunlight beating warm across her shoulders, and Deanna’s mellow, floral perfume drifting through the air from where she walks, just half a step to the right and a step forward from Tasha. Her hair is pulled up in a messy bun with some kind of ornate clip that screams “gift from Lwaxana”, and her blouse leaves her olive shoulders bare, falling loosely over the curves of her hips to layer over skirts that swirl around her ankles. It could be–any spring day on Earth, back on the beautiful grounds of the Academy, except that Tasha’s still in uniform.

She really, really shouldn’t take off the outer jacket so that she’s just in a tank top and trousers and can more easily pretend this is a date. She really, really shouldn’t.

“Warm, isn’t it?” she asks, tugging at the zipper, and Deanna tosses a smile back over her shoulder.

“Sorry, I programmed it that way. I could always–”

“No need,” Tasha blurts, too fast and too loud and too–

Deanna’s eyes crinkle at the corners as her smile broadens, and she ignores the embarrassment that she must be able to practically taste in the air. She’s so kind and as warm- warmer, even- as this not-spring day in the holodeck.

“I needed this,” she says instead, a longing sort of sigh in her voice as she tips back her face to the sun, long throat exposed.

A sign of trust–that Tasha won’t tear it out. Or that she won’t… Do something else. It’s obviously not an invitation, that’s for certain.

Tasha tears her eyes away to busy herself with folding her jacket over her forearm. She could drop it somewhere and it would just be there, waiting in a corner of the deck whenever they turned off the program, but that just feels wrong.

“It can be draining, being the sole counsel for an entire ship,” Deanna continues. “I needed a day off, and thankfully the captain was willing to give me one.” Her eyes sparkle as she adds, “And willing to give me my friends one at a time for an hour or two, here and there, to keep it from being a lonely day off.”

Tasha huffs back at her, shoving her hands into her pockets. “See, but I know what you’re doing,” she teases. “We’ve all been refusing your kindly worded memos recommending we take a vacation day or two, so you’re trying to rub this in our workaholic faces so we’re just oh-so-tempted to take our own.”

Deanna shrugs, clasping her hands behind her back and spinning off into the field of wildflowers. “I can neither confirm nor deny,” she insists, but the smile in her eyes is full of mischief.

“You know what they say,” Tasha calls after her, “‘All work and no play makes Jean Luc a dull boy.’” Deanna’s answering cackle sparks through the air, and Tasha ducks her chin as she grins.

It’s a lovely, lovely day; there are fake birds chirping somewhere in the holographic distance, and a sun that can’t burn her skin beats warm across her bare shoulders. She’s allowed to enjoy this, for the twenty minutes she has left before a meeting with Worf and her other Lieutenants. She just can’t enjoy it too much.

(She fails; it’s over too soon.)

“Thank you for coming with me, darling. It would’ve been no fun to wander through the holodeck like that alone.” Deanna’s fingertips brush over Tasha’s elbow, her red lips curling into a smile, and there’s something that hurts about how pretty she is. A sharp knife of want with a thin edge of jealousy, stuck deep in Tasha’s stomach.

“Any time,” she agrees.

Maybe she can’t stop that smitten look from reaching her eyes, but she does keep her voice calm and smile warm-but-not-too-warm. It’s a tightrope that she walks everyday; she can’t help but be grateful that Deanna hasn’t called her out on the inappropriate crush that she can undoubtedly sense rolling off of Tasha in waves.

(“Crush”, like Tasha’s any of the thousands of people who took one glance at that waterfall of curls or the graceful arc of her hands and thought Deanna was beautiful enough to crave. She’d be over it by now, if that’s all that this was.)

(But she doesn’t even really want to think about the other thing, so.)

(Crush.)

The silence has dragged on a moment too long, Tasha shamelessly drinking in the quiet intensity of being the center of Deanna’s focus, and it needs to end.

“Well, I’ll see you around,” she says, starting to walk away–or at least she means to say it. It comes out with slight uptick, a question, a hopeful curl of the air through her vocal cords–less neutral, and more… desperate.

(“Well, I’ll see you around?”)

Deanna’s smile broadens, her dark eyes lighting up once more with mischief. “Is that a promise?”

“Um–”

“Because,” Deanna continues, and she falls into step and threads her arm through Tasha’s rather than let her walk away red cheeked with embarrassment, “it wouldn’t do for the Enterprise’s Chief Security Officer to renege on a promise, would it?”

“Obviously,” Tasha says, uneasily. She wants to play along- she would, usually, because she tries so hard to not let herself revert to the stone-faced, paranoid ensign she was when she first entered Starfleet- but there’s a canary-eating tilt to Deanna’s grin. It’s putting her off-balance.

“Good.” Deanna lets go, folding her hands neatly behind her back and coming to a stop. “Then I’ll see you around.”

Tasha stands there for a moment, broadcasting confusion on every frequency, but Deanna doesn’t say anything else. Slowly, rolling the words across her tongue like the taste of them will help her understand what just happened, Tasha repeats, “I’ll… see you around.”

She backs away hesitatingly, a little furrow between her brow, and then- with a smart heel-turn- Tasha’s walking away as quickly as she can without breaking out into a run.

Sometimes, she feels like she doesn’t understand any more about people than Data does.

***

Tasha can feel Beverly’s scrutiny between her shoulder blades, and it’s making her tense. The sly smile, the smug twinkle in those blue eyes–ever since Tasha finished telling the story of the previous day’s post-holodeck scene. She’d glanced back, once, and she’s regretted it ever since.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she says, her voice like steel, and Beverly has the audacity to hum in response. Tasha holds herself straight and unflinching through sheer force of will, when her instincts are telling her to hunch and glare and snarl.

“Like what?” Beverly asks in return; her voice is doing that neutral, motherly thing that she normally saves for Wesley or a frustrating patient.

“Like you know something I don’t,” Tasha sneers, turning on her heel to walk backwards and fixing Beverly with the glare she’s been keeping in reserve for the better part of the last ten minutes. Knowing things is her job, just as much as jumping in front of phaser fire is. She doesn’t like to be out of the loop, or off balance, or–

“Oh, honey; I do.”

–patronized.

“Bye,” Tasha says, pointedly, and veers sideways.

“Shit!” Beverly’s curse follows her down the hallway.

She rushes to catch up, muttering a few more things under her breath that she’d probably ground her son for repeating as she does it. Her fingers brush against Tasha’s elbow, a request for her to slow down and an apology all at once, and- with a disgruntled wrinkle of her nose- Tasha obliges.

They stop in the middle of the hall–the Enterprise’s engines whirr somewhere below their feet, and a passing ensign swerves around them, the ear canals of her species politely closed and her six eyes trained on the floor. If only the very human, very nosy majority of the ship were so deferential to the personal lives of their commanding officers.

“Look,” Beverly says, and her voice has gone from motherly to exasperated, “Deanna? Her little ‘promise to see me later’ bit? A very non-subtle invitation for you to ask her out.”

“No.”

“So just–” Beverly rears back, an affronted look on her face, and she snatches her hand in to her chest. “What do you mean, 'no’?” she demands, and Tasha shakes her head pityingly.

“Deanna… knows how I feel,” she explains, as patiently as she can. “She knows it would be a sure thing if she ever made a move, but she hasn’t, so–”

“So she doesn’t want to take advantage of things she hasn’t been able to avoid sensing and rush you into a relationship she doesn’t know you’re actually ready for.” Beverly gives her a kind smile and a gentle slap upside the head; Tasha almost hears it more than feels it. “She respects your privacy, you idiot.”

“No, she–”

Beverly’s eyebrows shoot up. “She doesn’t respect your privacy?”

“No!” Tasha scowls, crossing her arms over her chest. “Of course she does.” Deanna knew more about her than anyone else on the ship, but it was all information freely given, to thoughtful eyes and expectant silences. The mere thought that she–it was absurd. “That’s not what I was protesting, and you know it!”

“I don’t know anything.” Beverly holds her hands wide, a challenging light in her eyes. “I thought I knew that you were too oblivious to your own emotions to even realize that you wanted to ask her out; frankly, I should’ve realized that you’d just figured out a noble reason to chicken out of doing it.”

Tasha’s blunt fingernails dig into the skin of her palms as she steps forward–she’s shorter than Beverly, but she leverages every molecule of the white hot rage pounding in her veins to make it seem like she’s not. “I know what you’re doing,” she snarls. “You’re a bad actress, and you can’t double-dog-dare-me into doing something I don’t want–”

“You do want,” Beverly snaps.

“No, I don’t–”

“You do.”

“Fine!” Tasha shouts.

She immediately takes a step back, forcing herself to relax her hands, forcing herself to modulate her voice. Beverly is uncowed- she knows Tasha’s temper burns bright but short, even if she were the type to ever give ground- but that doesn’t change the science blues peering curiously down the hallway to see what the commotion’s all about.

“Fine,” she repeats, carefully, and a brief glare sends the nosy geologists running. “Fine, I have… a crush, but Deanna doesn’t want me to act on it. That’s abundantly obvious. Not to mention how inappropriate it would be for two bridge officers to date–”

This, out of everything, throws Beverly off-balance. “Why?!?”

“Conflict of interest during a crisis,” Tasha answers immediately.

“Oh, honey.”

“Stop saying that!”

“I’ll stop saying it when you stop deserving it.” Beverly catches Tasha’s arm before she can do more than roll her eyes–she knows she’s about to walk away again. “Hey, no, look at me. No matter your intentions, there’s going to be an unhealthy power dynamic at play if you date someone of a lower rank. So if you can’t date another bridge officer, Tasha, then you can’t date anyone. And I’m no counselor, but when you’re up in space with no particular end of mission in sight? I’m pretty sure it’s unhealthy to refuse yourself any romantic or sexual contact if those are things you’re at all interested in.”

Tasha grinds her teeth, breathing the recycled air of her ship deep into her lungs as she refuses to look at Beverly. “I’m really not interested in continuing this conversation.”

After a moment of hesitation, her elbow is released. “Thank you,” she says, terse, and strides away.

***

She smells the chocolate, first.

It’s how she knows for sure that it’s Deanna at her door, fifteen minutes after a shift that found Tasha snappish and rude for its entire length; it’s why she only hesitates for a moment before calling, defeatedly, “Come in.”

Deanna has a brownie in each hand, and a wry smile on her lips. “Breaking your promise already?” she says. She sounds hopeful, like she wants Tasha to laugh; when she doesn’t, Deanna sighs.

She settles next to Tasha on the bed, her legs tucked up to the side, and carefully transfers one of the brownies and its protective napkin onto Tasha’s stomach. “Beverly told me the gist of your argument,” she admits, as Tasha pinches off the corner between her thumb and her index and ring fingers.

Brownies aren’t her favorite food. Honestly, she doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth at all–but Deanna believes, firmly, in the healing powers of chocolate, and this bad mood has clung too stubbornly to go away on its own. Tasha figures she might as well give the brownie a try.

She glances up at Deanna–dark eyes full of understanding, curls cascading freely down over one shoulder. Her shoes are carefully hanging off the edge of the bed, keeping dirt away from the sheets. She’s so thoughtful it hurts, as much as yesterday’s smile had.

“I’m surprised you aren’t off in the holodeck.” Deanna waves a hand- the one not cradling her own brownie to her chest- and a wry smile twists at the corners of her mouth. “Punching things.”

Breath in, breath out. Begrudingly, “I figured Bev would tell you,” Tasha mutters. “And that you’d want to talk.”

“I’d also be fine with listening,” Deanna offers, with a grin and a teasing little nudge of her elbow.

“Maybe next time.” Tasha lifts her brownie towards Deanna as if in a toast, and then ever-so-elegantly shoves half of it in her mouth. (Deanna snorts, in a way that sounds almost painful, and it most certainly does not elicit a smile from Tasha, thank you very much.)

They sit in companionable silence for a few minutes as they eat their brownies and Deanna thinks. Tasha knows she’s thinking, because there’s a little frown at the corners of her lips that even the chocolate is failing to smooth away. She doesn’t bother to try and guess where this is going before Deanna speaks–except when it comes to dealing with her mother, Deanna knows how to say what she means in the way that she means it.

“Beverly wasn’t wrong, you know,” she finally admits, a thread of embarrassment hidden under her nonchalant tone. (Tasha makes a noise to encourage her to continue, because she doesn’t know how else to respond.)

“I wanted to be cautious about assigning meaning to what I sensed,” Deanna explains, gesturing loosely with her free hand. “And when you never said anything, I assumed that I was… sensing what I wanted to sense.” She trails off for a moment, then adds, rushed, “I did. Want to. That’s what the teasing was about yesterday.”

“God.” Tasha lays her hand over her eyes, a hysterical laugh threatening to bubble up. “We’re useless.”

Deanna does laugh, a sharp bark of mirth as she slouches down on the bed as well. “To think, we advise the captain on matters of–”

She breaks off into a gasp as Tasha rolls, abruptly, onto her side and kisses her. It’s messy–she misses, mostly, catches the corner of Deanna’s mouth more than anything else, and her cheeks flood with heat.

“I, um, sorry–”

A fist clenches in Tasha’s t-shirt, catching her before she can pull more than a few inches away. “Don’t be,” she promises, ducking in for another kiss–a proper one, that tastes like chocolate and lipstick and mint toothpaste. Her lips are so soft; it’s a good distraction from the brownie crumbs being ground into her sheets.

When they pull apart, Deanna asks, “Changed your mind about conflict of interest?” with a hint of nervousness in her dark eyes. As if Tasha could possibly walk away from this- from her- now.

Tasha shrugs, flopping back down onto her back next to Deanna. “I have the CMO’s medical opinion that not dating you would be bad for my mental health,” she points out.


End file.
